TwinsUK: A longitudinal epidemiological and genomic resource

TwinsUK：纵向流行病学和基因组资源

• 批准号: MR/X021211/1
• 负责人: Claire Joanne Steves
• 金额: $ 368.42万
• 依托单位: King's College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FX021211%2F1
• 关键词: TwinsUK; longitudinal; epidemiological; genomic; resource

TwinsUK is a large research study investigating health and ageing and the impact of the environment. Twins are ideal participants in health research because they share DNA: identical twins share 100% of their DNA, while non-identical twins share 50%. This means we can make comparisons between identical and non-identical twins to understand the influence of genetics and the environment on health and ageing - i.e., 'nature and nurture'. Moreover, by studying changes in twin pairs as they develop through life, twin studies have a unique place in studying how our internal and external environments shape ageing and health.Right now, our world is undergoing significant changes in environment as we grapple with major shifts, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change (and measures to combat it), and economic instability. Inside our bodies, these may have impact right from how our DNA is used, through to whole body function and onset of disease. Few studies in the UK have the depth of capture of all these levels, measured longitudinally, or the unique twin design to help separate the influence of the genetic code itself. Our study therefore provides a rich and unique resource to scientists across the world to understand the interplay of all these factors, as shown by our extensive collaboration and data sharing. We set up TwinsUK in 1992, and 16,000 adult twins from across the UK have volunteered to take part (currently over 10,000 twins actively participate). We have collected extensive genomic, health, lifestyle and environmental data and biological samples such as blood and stool from participants at multiple time points over the 30 years. We know from feedback surveys that TwinsUK participants are proud to be twins and proud to be able to contribute uniquely to research as a result. This has led them to demonstrate long-term commitment, be highly engaged, recallable and volunteer willingly for intensive studies. Our twin participants are therefore very important and valuable long-term contributors to health research.Managing TwinsUK, including maintaining our data and sample collections, requires many people working together across our administrative, clinical, data and engagement teams, as well as academic researchers. With this grant, we hope to maintain our highly successful scientific resource: 80% of the requested infrastructure funds will continue essential staff salaries in maintaining and sharing the resource. We aim to continue to be the twin cohort with the most comprehensive data available to scientists to use in the world. In order to get the most scientific benefit out of our twins' donated data and samples, we securely share our research data with the scientific community, obviously ensuring confidentiality and never share names or addresses. We offer an unrivalled access to sharing both data and samples: we have shared data & samples with more than 1,800 researchers, and the resource has produced over 1,000 scientific publications. This ensures we make the most out of our twins' contributions and enables us to contribute to more health research all over the world.In the next five years we plan to enhance the resource with further data sharing collaborations. In line with the MRC review on "maximising biomedical data science opportunities", we continuously strive to increase visibility, discoverability, accessibility, and timeliness of our data. In addition, the core infrastructure of this LPS award will enable further scientific research through grant applications and allow TwinsUK to answer important questions, such as the future of our sustainable health through diet and lifestyle studies to address important global challenges. This LPS grant will therefore both enhance the scientific value of TwinsUK and enable us to provide a unique international collaborative resource with huge potential for research across the life-course.

TwinsUK是一项大型研究，调查健康和老龄化以及环境的影响。双胞胎是健康研究的理想参与者，因为他们有共同的DNA：同卵双胞胎分享100%的DNA，而异卵双胞胎分享50%。这意味着我们可以对同卵双胞胎和异卵双胞胎进行比较，以了解遗传和环境对健康和衰老的影响--即先天和后天的影响。此外，通过研究双胞胎在一生中的发育变化，双胞胎研究在研究我们的内外环境如何影响衰老和健康方面具有独特的地位。目前，我们的世界正在经历重大环境变化，因为我们正在努力应对重大变化，如新冠肺炎疫情、气候变化(以及应对措施)和经济不稳定。在我们的体内，这些可能会产生影响，从我们的DNA的使用方式，到整个身体的功能和疾病的发病。在英国，很少有研究能够纵向测量所有这些水平的捕获深度，或者使用独特的双胞胎设计来帮助分离遗传密码本身的影响。因此，我们的研究为世界各地的科学家提供了丰富而独特的资源，以了解所有这些因素的相互作用，正如我们广泛的合作和数据共享所表明的那样。我们在1992年成立了TwinsUK，来自英国各地的16,000对成年双胞胎自愿参加(目前有超过10,000对双胞胎积极参与)。我们收集了广泛的基因组、健康、生活方式和环境数据，以及30年来多个时间点参与者的血液和粪便等生物样本。我们从反馈调查中了解到，TwinsUK的参与者为自己是双胞胎而感到自豪，并为能够因此为研究做出独特的贡献而自豪。这导致他们表现出长期的承诺，高度投入，善于回忆，并愿意自愿进行密集学习。因此，我们的双胞胎参与者是健康研究非常重要和有价值的长期贡献者。管理TwinsUK，包括维护我们的数据和样本收集，需要我们的行政、临床、数据和参与团队中的许多人以及学术研究人员一起工作。有了这笔赠款，我们希望保持我们非常成功的科学资源：所需基础设施资金的80%将继续支付维护和共享资源所需的工作人员工资。我们的目标是继续成为拥有最全面数据的双胞胎队列，供科学家在世界上使用。为了从我们双胞胎捐赠的数据和样本中获得最大的科学利益，我们安全地与科学界共享我们的研究数据，显然是为了确保保密，永远不会共享姓名或地址。我们提供了无与伦比的数据和样本共享渠道：我们与1800多名研究人员共享了数据和样本，该资源已经出版了1000多份科学出版物。这确保了我们最大限度地利用我们双胞胎的贡献，并使我们能够为世界各地更多的健康研究做出贡献。在接下来的五年里，我们计划通过进一步的数据共享合作来增强资源。根据MRC关于“最大限度地增加生物医学数据科学机会”的审查，我们不断努力提高我们数据的可见性、可发现性、可访问性和及时性。此外，LPS奖的核心基础设施将通过拨款申请促进进一步的科学研究，并使TwinsUK能够通过研究饮食和生活方式来回答重要问题，如我们可持续健康的未来，以应对重要的全球挑战。因此，这笔LPS赠款将既增强TwinsUK的科学价值，又使我们能够提供一个独特的国际合作资源，在整个生命周期内具有巨大的研究潜力。